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Sunday, 30 August 2015

I never really know my
characters before I begin writing them. It must seem like a strange
way of going about it. I know some writers like to spend a lot of
time building a character beforehand, but I’ll often begin writing
a character and not know anything about them. I’m not simply
talking about a character’s physical characteristics, but rather
who
they are as a person.

It’s only as I write
them, that they slowly begin to reveal who are they and come to life.
And it’s always a great moment, when that character begins to take
control of the narrative, shaping and taking it to places even I
don’t expect.

This does make writing
outlines rather tricky, as my characters sometimes decide they’re
going to take the plot in an entirely different direction. That’s
why I’ve never really liked writing outlines that are too in-depth.
I try to keep my outlines flexible and loose. I need to know where my
characters start, and roughly where they’re going to end up, but
the stuff in the middle is all rather vague.

It’s a tricky balance to
get right. I like to keep a story structured and tight so it doesn’t
meander about without a lot happening. It doesn’t matter if I’m
playing a game, watching a film or reading a book – there’s
nothing worse than the feeling that your time is being wasted on
meaningless tosh.

So where do we start with
DOTJ? We begin with a rough notion of the type of setting I want. We
then put together a list of names that feel appropriate for the
setting. These are my characters, although I don’t yet know who
they are. From here, I picture an opening scene, the moment
everything kicks off. I’ll then write this scene, trying to
establish the tone and style of the story.

Once I feel I have a grasp
on those, I’ll begin to work on a rough outline and structure. I’ll
focus primarily on the early stages of the story and leave the rest
fairly open. I’ll then write the first few chapters. This is when
you realise if the story/character is going to work or not.

I’m now at this point
with DOTJ. I’ve written a few chapters to get a sense of my
characters, tone and style. I’m pretty happy with it, but it still
needs a lot of work. Now that I have these somewhat established, I
can go back to my outline and begin to properly flesh it out.

I still
don’t quite feel that I know my main character yet. It will likely
take some time, but that moment will come. The moment they stop doing
what I’m
telling them and start acting independently. That’s when it really
becomes their
story and I’m just along for the ride.

Tuesday, 25 August 2015

Zombi is a first person
survival horror title set in London during a zombie outbreak. It
originally released on the Wii U in 2012 as ZombiU, but it’s now
been ported to PC. I’ve not played the Wii U version, so I can’t
really compare and comment on how the lack of the Wii U gamepad
functionality changes things.

You play as a random
survivor, guided to safety by the mysterious ‘Prepper’. Beginning
in your safe house, you’ll venture out to various locations across
London in order to complete objectives and piece together a possible
cure for the zombie plague. In terms of its story and characters,
Zombi isn’t particularly engaging. I thought the ‘Black Prophecy’
and ‘Ravens of Dee’ stuff was interesting, but none of it is
fleshed out to a satisfying degree.

The player ‘respawn’
mechanic is also at odds with its story focus. Every time you die,
you restart as a different survivor, but your ‘new’ survivor
simply picks up where the last one left off with regards to mission
progression. It doesn’t really make any sense, but you won’t
really care. The
story and characters
of Zombi successfully prod you from one location to the next, but you
never feel particularly involved or invested.

So let’s talk about
gameplay. The world of Zombi is broken down into several locations
split by load screens. It’s a world you’re free to explore, but
you’ll be limited by the necessity of certain upgrades or equipment
which must be obtained by following the story. The locations aren’t
massive, so there’s not a great deal of exploration or alternate
routes. Each location is pretty much just a linear path from A to B.

In terms of movement, you
can either walk or run. There’s no ‘stealth’ system in Zombi,
which I was actually a little disappointed by. Yes, you can distract
zombies using flares, but it’s often easier (and safer) to just
clear them out as you go rather than attempt to bypass them. Which
leads us onto combat.

You have a varied selection
of weapons, all of which you can upgrade to a degree, and each
survivor will ‘level up’ with each weapon type the more they use
them – aside from melee weapons, strangely. The upgrade and level
system is pretty basic though and doesn’t really seem to make much
of a difference. Given that these skills reset with each new
survivor, that’s probably a good thing, especially if you die
towards the end and no longer have the necessary levels to progress.

Although the game
recommends avoiding using guns due to the sound attracting more
zombies, it’s not something you ever really have to worry about.
There are a lot of times you’ll be able to use guns quite freely,
which is something I quite enjoyed. That said, ammo is ridiculously
plentiful. It was only during the final stages that I began to run
short. I also had far more flares, medkits, mines and food than I
ever knew what to do with. As a survival horror, Zombi is excessively
generous, and this has a detrimental effect on the overall
experience.

The game has a ‘barricade’
mechanic, but you’ll never need to use it, which is lucky, because
the required planks don’t stack and rapidly fill up your limited
inventory. Set barricades also seem to de-spawn whenever you reload
the game, making ‘securing’ areas utterly pointless. Also taking
up space in your inventory is your default pistol and bat, which
either due to a bug or terrible design choice, I was unable to drop
or store even when I had acquired superior weapons.

You do acquire bag upgrades
as you progress, allowing you to hold more stuff, but the
inventory/storage system isn’t very good and is fiddly to manage.
Your safe house chest rapidly fills up, and attempting to drop items
outside of it only results in them de-spawning. If you think you’ll
be able to hoard supplies – you know, like a survivor should –
then you’ll be disappointed. What you can’t cram into your
limited storage chest or bag will simply vanish from the game.

Zombi’s major flaw,
unfortunately, is that it’s far too easy. I’ve played both the
Standard and the ‘one life’ Survival mode and completed both
without any real trouble. I began with the Standard mode and only
died twice. The first time felt a little cheap (I turned a dark
corner and hit a zombie with my bat, only for the bugger to explode)
and the second was simply caused by careless impatience. But once I
knew what to expect and when, playing Survival mode was a breeze from
start to finish.

Zombies in Zombi are only
really a threat in numbers, but you’ll rarely be dealing with more
than 2 or 3 at a time. There are ‘special’ zombie types, but
these feel odd and out of place within the context of the game and
don’t really add any additional challenge aside from taking a few
extra shots to kill. Provided you don’t rush into more than you’re
equipped to handle, you’re pretty much always in control of your
situation, which doesn’t exactly lend itself to what should be a
tense, unsettling experience.

Where the game does excel
is with its atmosphere, at least at certain points Though not
reaching the heights of say, Alien: Isolation, Zombi can
become quite tense during certain moments – moments when you’re
exploring new locations, or are suddenly and unexpectedly swarmed.
It’s in those moments when you don’t know what to expect, when
you don’t feel in control that the game really comes to life. It’s
a shame the majority of the game is so straightforward and easy,
because it has the mechanics in place to maintain a high level of
tension throughout, but ultimately Zombi only delivers it in short,
sporadic bursts.

Zombi isn’t a very long
game. My Standard run took 8 hours, my Survival only 6. And now
there’s nothing really left to see. If
I sound a little disappointed by Zombi, that’s because it’s a
game I feel has far more potential. As a survival horror game, Zombi
is enjoyably competent, but aside from one or two moments of
brilliance, it never engages the player to any great degree. It’s a
little rough (the port is very bare bones), not very fleshed out, and
far, far
too easy. But if you’re looking for a zombie survival experience,
Zombi is still worth checking out.

It’s a shame we’ll
probably never get a sequel to Zombi, which could build upon this
solid, if unremarkable foundation. Because this is a game crying out
for a sequel that could turn an ‘okay’ experience into a great
one.

Thursday, 20 August 2015

Fallout Shelter is a
mobile/tablet game based on the Fallout series. I thought it looked
quite neat when it was revealed at E3 earlier this year, but because
I don’t own a smartphone or tablet, it wasn’t something I was
able to play. But now, thanks to the wonders of technology, it’s
possible to play Fallout Shelter on PC.

I’m actually playing it
right now, as I’m typing this. If there’s one good thing I can
say about Fallout Shelter, is that it’s a nice little game to have
running in the background when you’re busy with other things. Like
most mobile/tablet based games, it’s not really designed for
extended play, but short, productive bursts when you have anywhere
from 5 to 15 minutes to spare.

You play as an Overseer to
your own personal vault. You begin small, with a handful of rooms and
vault dwellers, but soon begin to expand. Rooms cost caps,
the currency of Shelter which can be earned in various ways – but
not, it should be noted, by an in-game purchase. Well, not quite.
We’ll get back to those later. Your vault and its residents require and consume
three resources – power, water and food – all of which are
generated by the appropriate rooms.

So let’s break down
exactly how this works – expanding your shelter and increasing your
population will generate more resources, but an increased population
also consumes
more resources. This creates a solid, if repetitive cycle of expand,
upgrade, populate and repeat. It’s undeniably addictive – at
least for a few days.

The primary limitation to
your expansion isn’t resources, however, but caps. Every room or
upgrade has a cap price. The prices are tolerable, but they can slow
expansion down to a tedious crawl during the early stages of the
game. Of course, it is possible to purchase more caps, but it’s not
as straightforward as you might expect. You can purchase ‘lunch
boxes’ which hold four or five random cards. These may be weapons,
outfits, dwellers, or a specific amount of a resource type or caps.

I’m not sure if this is
better or worse than simply selling caps in variously sized bundles.
At least then you’re guaranteed to get the caps you want, but using
this system, there’s no way of knowing exactly what you’re going
to get. It feels a little insidious, the system encouraging people to
buy ‘just one more box’ in the hope of getting what they need.

No, I’ve not bought any
boxes myself, but I can’t deny the temptation is there. We’re not
all immune to slick presentation. Every time you open a mystery box,
it’s like a little pleasure button being pushed in your brain. And
the game teases you with these boxes, tossing you a few free ones
early on to whet your appetite.

And Fallout Shelter is very
slick. It looks great, has nice sound effects and animations. Its UI
could use some work though, especially when you want to examine
dweller statistics at a glance, or sort through your inventory. And
yes, it’s fun to play. It’s neat watching your shelter expand,
assigning dwellers to various roles based upon their stats. Training
them, levelling them up, sending them out to the wasteland to
scavenge for supplies and hopefully return alive.

The game seems relatively
bug free, but I’ve had issues with the random raider attacks – my
assigned guards either ignoring the raiders, or running off to
another part of the shelter. I also had an odd issue where I quit the
game for a few hours, leaving my vault in good shape, only to return
and find it in a terrible state with nearly zero resources and all of
my dwellers suffering from radiation exposure. I still don’t know
quite what happened but it forced me to restart.

My main problem with
Fallout Shelter is that it’s all just too simple and repetitive.
Like I said, it’s undeniably addictive for a few days, but the more
you play, the more you realise just how shallow, limited and
ultimately pointless the experience is. There’s no depth, challenge
or complexity. I was disappointed by the dweller management, hoping
to do more than simply equip them with an outfit and assign them to a
room.

What about shift
management? What about assigning supervisors to different
departments? What about letting us f**k with the dwellers in weird
and wacky experiments? And there’s very little in the way of random
or exciting events aside from the same outbreaks of fires, roaches or
little bands of raiders. There’s really not much to it at all, when
you stop to think about it.

‘Exploring’ the
wasteland is just a slow way of gathering random gear…to make it
easier to gather more
random gear. You expand your shelter to generate more resources…in
order to expand your shelter to generate more
resources. During the early stages of the game, increasing your stash
of caps takes time, but you’ll eventually reach the point when
you’ll be able to generate more than you really need.

This means that although
the game opens up in terms of expanding and upgrading your vault,
there’s also nothing really left for you to do but sit back, watch,
and gather resources you no longer require. There’s no ‘end game’
as such, because Shelter only gets easier the longer you play.
There’s no real goal, other than to expand until you’re tired of
it. It’s just a mater of – expand, upgrade, expand, upgrade, get
bored, start over, rinse and repeat.

Which isn’t actually such
a bad thing. The structure, though repetitive, works.
The problem is, there’s simply not enough variation to make it
interesting. There’s not enough different types of rooms, dwellers
or styles of vault you can build. Ultimately, every vault will
operate the same, and once you figure out the most efficient method
of expansion, there’s very little reason to deviate from it.

It doesn’t help that you
can’t pick and choose what rooms to build regardless of the cost,
as every room is ‘locked’ out until you hit a certain population.
This means that your vault layout will typically always follow the
same structure. It severely limits player creativity in terms of
vault design. What’s even worse, is that if you decide to remove a
room because you don’t like its placement, you only get back a tiny
fraction of its cost, discouraging experimentation.

The ability to force your
dwellers to have children offers some amusement, as you play a
somewhat twisted game of eugenics as you attempt to selectively breed
the best ‘stats’ in their offspring (although it doesn’t seem
to make much of a difference). There’s something a little insulting
about it though, as it basically reduces your female dwellers to baby
factories. Not to mention, when pregnant, your women are utterly
useless in a crisis – seriously, they just run about and wave their
arms in the air.

Fallout Shelter isn’t a
bad little game, but it’s far too shallow and simplistic to
seriously hold my attention. I was hoping for more complexity and
depth to the vault and dweller management. But ultimately, it only
offers a simple and repetitive experience, one which begins to lose
its appeal after only a few short days when you realise you’ve seen
everything it has to offer. It’s a shame, because managing a
Fallout vault is a pretty cool idea for a game, but Fallout Shelter
sadly falls short of its potential.

Saturday, 15 August 2015

Ori and the Blind Forest is
an action based 2D platform/puzzle game. It’s also one of the best
titles I’ve played this year. Maybe the
best. Yes, even more so than The Witcher 3. Ori may not offer a 120
hour epic, but it’s a game that strikes about as close to perfect
as you can get.

You play as Ori, a cute
little critter on a quest to restore the forest of Nibel. It’s a
charming tale, with some surprisingly touching moments. There’s a
Zelda style vibe to the world and story, but also to the way the game
is structured. There are three ‘dungeons’ to complete, each
themed around a natural element (wind, fire and water).

You begin with a basic
skill and attack set but as you progress, these skills will evolve
(jump – double jump – triple jump) or be enhanced (more powerful
attacks). You’ll also unlock new abilities which allow access to
previously inaccessible areas. It’s not exactly an original way of
structuring player progression, but it’s perfectly paced and
designed.

Some abilities are acquired
as part of the story progression, but you’ll also be able to earn
skill points by destroying enemies or by collecting those hidden
throughout the world. These points are fed into three trees to
enhance abilities or to gain advantages such as having hidden
collectibles marked on your map.

The world of Ori isn’t
massive, but it’s very cleverly designed. You move between several
areas, many of which are connected by multiple paths, but many of
these paths can only be opened with the right abilities. It results
in an experience that isn’t entirely linear, because there is a lot
of scope to explore, but it also forces the player to move in the
right direction.

And as you progress,
unlocking new abilities, and perhaps want to explore and seek out
more upgrades (to say, health or energy), you’ll be able to open up
more of these alternate paths, allowing faster access to the
different areas of the map. It makes backtracking through areas
you’ve already traversed far easier and far less tedious.

The combat of the game is
very, very simple, but neatly combined with your abilities. You have
a basic magic attack which you can spam until you whittle an enemy
down, or you can charge it up and release it in a powerful blast. You
also have a ‘slam’ attack, and you’ll also unlock other
movement based abilities which can be used to attack – such as a
‘charged’ jump ability which you can use to tear through multiple
enemies.

The real focus of Ori
though isn’t the combat, but the platform/puzzle elements. The
level design in Ori is fantastic. Initially, it may seem rather
simple, but as your skill set expands, so does the nature of the
puzzles put before you. As you progress, the levels become more
elaborate, forcing you to combine various abilities in order to
proceed.

None of the puzzles are
particularly challenging, but they do make you stop and think. The
real challenge comes from the platform segments, the ‘chase’
scenes in particular. I was worried Ori might be a bit too easy, but
thankfully, it offers some pretty tense, exciting and challenging
moments.

This is a game in which
you’ll want to save regularly because death is very common. There
are many areas where even a slight misstep can result in an instant
death. There are also some fast paced, action based segments which
may require multiple precision jumps, including rapidly combining
various skills, or you’ll die and be forced to restart.

This may sound a little
unfair and maybe even frustrating, but that’s never really the
case. Yes, some segments can be demanding and unforgiving, but they
really push the player to succeed, and when you do, it’s all the
more satisfying. It’s been a long time since I can recall a game
really having me on the edge of my seat, gripping my controller
tight, but there are multiple sections of Ori that had me doing just
that.

The game is incredibly well
structured, varied and paced, always giving you something new, be it
abilities, enemies or environments. Its gameplay is deceptively
simple, but highly skill based (there’s achievements for a 3 hour
speed and a ‘no death’ run which I’m not sure I’d want to
tackle) and thankfully (and importantly, given the precision
required) its controls are spot on.

Graphically, Ori looks
gorgeous with fantastic environments, creatures and animations. It
also has a great soundtrack and effects. My only real complaint about
Ori is that it’s a bit short, clocking in at about 10 hours. That’s
not to say it felt
too short, because the game is extremely well paced, but rather, I
was enjoying it so much I wanted more of it – more dungeons, more
puzzles, more enemies.

With some ingenious level
design, challenging, fast paced gameplay, amazing visuals and sound,
plus a wonderfully touching narrative, Ori and the Blind Forest is a
definite contender for my game of the year.

Saturday, 8 August 2015

I can’t review Life is Strange yet because the final episode hasn’t been released, but I
thought I’d do a post about the game and my experience with it.
It’s an episodic, narrative driven adventure title, similar in
style to the Telltale Walking Dead games. You play as Max, a teenage
girl with the ability to ‘rewind’ time. As with the Telltale
games, it’s a title featuring player choices which impact
the unfolding narrative.

Without the fifth and final
episode in place, how much impact choices really have still remains
to be seen. I’m hoping it will tie together various choices made
throughout the previous four, although I suspect, as with the
Telltale WD games, it won’t be quite as complex a web of
consequences as I would hope.

Choices in LiS fall into
two categories – high impact and low impact. There are four to five
high impact choices in each episode, with ten or more low impact.
High impact decisions obviously alter the narrative in a more
substantial way, but some low impact choices, when combined, can also
play their part. There’s a wonderful/tragic moment at the end of episode 2 for example, whereby one or two high impact decisions are
combined with several low impact choices to determine the outcome.
It’s a great example of the choice based gameplay coming together
in a meaningful way.

Of course, not every choice
has such a fundamental impact on the plot, and even this moment in
episode 2, ultimately, doesn’t alter that much going forward, aside
from adding an additional scene. That’s not to say these choices,
even the relatively pointless low impact decisions (will you water
your plant?) aren’t effective at tailoring a unique, player driven
narrative. In fact, after completing the currently released episodes
and then watching a few other people play via YouTube, I was
impressed how differently some scenes and interactions played out.

And, it should be
remembered, that until we have the final episode we won’t really
know just how important every decision was - maybe that plant was
super important, after all. Overall though, I was quite pleased with
how the game handled decisions and consequences. I really hope the
final episode ties everything together in a way that makes sense and
doesn’t render too many of our decisions irrelevant. I’d love for
multiple endings, perhaps even with ‘bad’ endings. I doubt
they’ll go this route, and we’ll probably get a single ‘core’
ending with a few variations, but as long as they handle it
appropriately, I won’t be too fussed.

Another interesting thing
to note about the decisions in LiS is how the rewind mechanic plays
into them. Using Max’s special power you get to see the immediate
outcome of every choice, large or small. The long term outcome
remains to be seen, but it’s nice being able to ‘undo’ a choice
if you’re not entirely happy with it – and this ties neatly into
the plot as Max struggles with her new ability and how to use it responsibly.

The rewind power can also
be used quite cleverly in some situations. For example, in one
episode I broke into a room, damaging the lock. I could have left the
lock broken but instead, because Max’s position remains constant
even during a rewind, I used the power to ‘fix’ the lock, but
remained within the room. Now, I’m not sure it will matter later if
people know someone broke into the room or not (and it probably
won’t) but it’s a neat touch. And there are several similar
situations where you can use your power like this to undo actions and
cover your tracks. Or not, if you’d prefer.

Before the final episode
drops, I’m probably going to set up a second run, but make as many
different choices as I can, just to see how much I can alter the
narrative. Hopefully, it will also impact a lot on the final episode
too. But we’ll see.

I’ve talked a lot about
choices and consequences, but what about the game itself? How does it
play? In terms of gameplay, it’s all rather simple, but that’s
all it really needed to be. You move Max throughout the environments,
clicking to investigate or interact. You can rewind at any point, and
this power plays a big part in solving the various puzzles throughout
the episodes. There’s nothing particularly challenging or hard to
figure out, but the rewind mechanic is nicely incorporated.

There’s a lot to examine
(posters, books, computers, photos etc) and the attention to detail
throughout the environments is great. The game has a nice art style
to it, especially for the interiors, although some of the exteriors
do look a little bland. The animations, in general, are good,
although the game does suffer from some horribly static facial
expressions and lip sync. It’s strange, because at times the facial
animations are really good and expressive, but at others, they look a bit shit.

The game makes good use of
lighting and sound to enhance the atmosphere. I wouldn’t typically
listen to the sort of music featured in the game, but it fits the style, tone
and story. I liked the mystery aspect to the plot, especially the
moment in episode 4 when you piece all your gathered clues together.
Whereas the Telltale titles seem to be moving away from player
exploration/investigation, I really appreciated being able to take my
time and explore the environments or solve puzzles at my own pace.
It’s not all just QTE cut-scenes and dialogue choices.

Although the first episode
is a little slow, it does hint at what’s to come, and thankfully it
really kicks into gear during episode 2. By the end of episode 2 I
was completely hooked and by 3 I was fully engrossed. I really,
really got into this game in a way I didn’t expect and I can’t
wait to play the final episode to see how it all wraps up.

In terms of the writing,
LiS can be a little inconsistent. There’s a few dialogue heavy
moments (one scene in episode 4 in particular) that get a little
tedious, and some conversations feel less ‘natural’ than others.
Some dialogue is a little dodgy or just, well…bad (STUPID GUN!).
And there are some logical inconsistencies with regards to character
reactions and the way certain scenes play out.
It’s got its rough edges, without a doubt, but they didn’t stop
me from becoming emotionally invested in the story.

Although I expected I’d
like Life is Strange based on what little I’d seen of it, I didn’t
expect to become quite so invested in the narrative or characters.
Being the heartless bastard that I am, it’s usually hard to make me
care. But LiS made me care. I just hope the final episode doesn’t
f**k it all up.

Saturday, 1 August 2015

I almost didn’t buy
Transistor in the recent Steam sale. I’m so glad I did. It’s an
action-RPG, set in the futuristic city of Cloudbank. You play as Red,
a singer without a voice, on a mission to save and restore Cloudbank
from an aggressive transformation called the ‘Process’.

I won’t say much more
than that, because I really don’t want to spoil anything. The
narrative aspect of Transistor is handled superbly, slowly unfolding
before the player as they progress. The world building is also
fantastic and perfectly paced.

Though Red may not be able
to speak, the developers inject a lot of personality into her
character through her animations, and her interactions with various
information terminals. The cast of Transistor may be small, but the
two primary characters possess an engaging bond that drives the
player through the story.

This is a game with a lot
of lovely little touches and attention to detail. The aforementioned
terminals are a neat glimpse into the world, but also to how Red
responds to it. And then you have the ‘hum’ and ‘flourish’
buttons. ‘Hum’ certainly has a special context within the game
with regards to the character, but it’s also wonderful to listen
to. And though ‘flourish’ may seem rather pointless, it injects a
little life into Red and the world about her.

In terms of visuals and
style, Transistor is a gorgeous game. With a variety of environments
and enemies, colourful effects and lovely character designs,
Transistor looks fantastic. It also has a superb soundtrack which
perfectly complements the action. So, as far as visuals, sound,
character and story, Transistor hits every target. But what about the
gameplay?

It’s a mixture of
real-time and turn-based combat. You have four active ‘functions’
which are your attack abilities. There are 16 in all and you’ll
unlock them as you progress and level up. You can attack in
real-time, but due to enemy numbers and the speed of combat, you’ll
need to use the turn-based system if you want to succeed and survive.

You can pause the action,
allowing you to queue up a chain of attacks, or to reposition within
the combat environment. You then ‘execute’ this planned turn.
Once completed, you’ll have to wait for the turn-based pause to
recharge. It’s a neat little system that adds a fair degree of
strategy to combat encounters.

You’ll be facing a
variety of enemy types, and although the game does a good job of
introducing new enemies as you progress, it also upgrades existing
enemies with new skills, always keeping you on your toes. As you
defeat these encounters, you’ll level up, allowing you to select
new functions, or unlock new upgrade/passive ability slots.

And this is where the
combat system, though quite simple in practice, becomes a lot more
interesting. Every function has a primary ability, but also an
upgrade and passive ability. By combining different functions, you
can build a diverse selection of offensive and defensive abilities.
It allows you to enhance or modify every function in various ways
depending on how you combine them.

It’s a lot of fun
experimenting with this system, building different combinations and
seeing what works best for you. The game also includes a small number
of challenge style rooms to test your skills in various ways such as
speed or efficiency. And efficiency is a key component of Transistor
combat – finding the least number of moves to defeat an encounter.
It’s a little puzzle-like, in a way, and if you want to make the
combat even more interesting and challenging, there are 10 ‘limiters’
you can activate, with various impacts on your own abilities, or on
enemy abilities.

Overall, I found the combat
system fun, engaging and enjoyable to play – but it’s not without
its problems. Some of the combat ‘arenas’ that you get locked
into are quite small and restrictive, somewhat limiting your
strategy. And because you can’t rotate the map, it’s sometimes
easy to lose focus on where enemies are as they become obscured by
scenery.

It can also play havoc with
the targeting system, whereby you’ll often be told your attack will
be ‘blocked’ even though there’s no apparent obstacle. As a
result of all this, some fights end up being more messy than truly
tactical. Battles, I must admit, can also get a little repetitive
over time, but thankfully this isn’t too much of an issue as
new/upgraded enemies are introduced.

I would have really, really
liked to see more boss fights. There’s only a couple in the game,
and your very first is great. It’s a shame there’s not more ‘big’
encounters like this, with multiple stages to fight through. I also
would have liked a little more exploration of the city, as most of
the time you’re pushed along an extremely linear path.

Transistor isn’t a very
long game (I beat it in about 9 hours) but I’d say it’s long
enough. Any more and it would have just been padding the experience.
But though it’s rather short, it does have a decent degree of
replay value. There’s a new game plus mode (which I’m already
getting stuck into), allowing you to restart with all of your
unlocked levels and abilities.

It’s an opportunity to
play through the game a second time and appreciate all the details
you didn’t pick up on the first time through, but also to challenge
yourself by using the various limiters and facing even harder
opponents.

Overall, Transistor was an
enjoyable, intriguing and frequently touching experience. With
fantastic visuals, style and sound, great characters, a superbly
unfolding narrative, plus a solid and engaging combat system, it
comes highly recommended.